^{“Gods and Monsters”}

^{A review of the bride of Frankenstein (1935)}

^{Directed by: James Whale}

^{Starring: Boris Karloff……The monster}

^{Colin Clive……Dr. Frankenstein}

^{Elsa Lanchester……Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly/ the bride}

^{Ernest Thesiger……Doctor Pretorius}

^{Valerie Hobson……Elizabeth}

^{One night in the summer of 1816 Mary Shelly and love Percy Bysshe went to visit Lord Byron at his home near Lake Geneva in Switzerland. During their stay it was too rainy and drowsy to go and enjoy outside so the three sat around there fireplace discussing ghost stories till dawn. Lord Byron then suggested that all three of them write horror stories to tell to one another. This is where Mary Shelly came up with the idea of Frankenstein. A story about a mad doctor who creates an animated body out of dead human parts in the themes of Prometheus. This is also where the film begins. Although it creates a good narrative thread it dulls down the story in to saying its all fiction. In my opinion when I watch a film as a viewer I have the sense the story is somehow real. This helps to get involved with the characters and plot. So saying that in the beginning it’s all unreal then you give the impression that there is no matter to really care about the players because they are all fiction.}

^{The film picks up where the original stopped; at the scene of Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) unconscious and the monster ( Boris Karloff) burning inside the windmill surrounded by angry villagers. But of course like all additional sequels he had never truly perished. The creation then stumbles away and roams free throughout the villa. Victor Frankenstein alive and well now receives a visit from Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) who in conversation intrigues Frankenstein to further his experimentations.}

^{Meanwhile the monster is captured in an attempt to save a woman from drowning. This mirroring the scene in the first film where a little girl drowns to death. She lives but is too scared of the sight of the monster to be thankful. He escapes and friends a blind man. A twist of irony do to the horrible image of the monster and the blind man’s urge to have a friend. The blind man then feeds and teaches his new friend how to speak; creating a more human image. But as welcoming is the thought of the monster being happy is, it is interrupted by two hunting men in search for the obvious.}

^{The monster flees and ends up hiding in the only real place he understands, the graveyard; truly his origin and point of creation. He there finds what he really wants, a companion, a woman, a bride. He meets Doctor Pretorius where he shares a meal similar to the one he had earlier with his friend the blind man (the good to the Doctors evil).}

^{Victor Frankenstein then changes his mind about creating another specimen but his mind changes when he realizes that Doctor Pretorius kidnaps his beloved wife Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson). Dr. Frankenstein is forced then to work with Doctor Pretorius in creating a bride for his monster the same way his original creation came to be.}

^{The two work vigorously and hard to create another reanimation. They work long into the night but finally out of tiredness and stress finish their creation a companion and bride (Elsa Lanchester) for the monster. The bride though rejects her suitor and sends the monster to do what he should have done in the first place. The monster gives permission for his creator and wife to leave but keeps the new experiment and Doctor Pretorius to die. The monster pulls a switch that explodes the entire castle and its inhabitants.}

^{Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) act as the continuation of the tales of men who tried to play gods. The creation like a baby learns a conscience and how to speak , but in the end learns right from wrong and what should exist in this world. But the story of Frankenstein can be put into terms now more than ever. The question it leaves is how far will man go with science before he has gone too far? J. Robert Oppenheimer (the father of the atomic bomb) said “I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.”}